


A dance between light and death

by Sylvesterelle



Category: Legacies (TV 2018), The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Kindness is NEW and TERRIFYING to clarke, One bed trope but the bed is the entirety of malivore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvesterelle/pseuds/Sylvesterelle
Summary: That bit of kindness she’d shown him, during the attack and in the moments before, was more kindness than he’d been shown in a millennia. He’d follow her through the darkness blindly, tell a thousand lies, if only he could find out why. If only it might, somehow, happen again.The thread between Hope and Clarke, beginning in Malivore.
Relationships: Ryan Clarke/Hope Mikaelson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	A dance between light and death

Hope thought she could handle the loneliness. She’d had enough of that in her lifetime, each loss building upon the last till she couldn’t help but weigh the time she had left with those who remained; force herself to picture her life without them so that when the time came, she would be prepared.

But nothing could have prepared her for this.

It wasn’t just loneliness, this was _oblivion._ Isolation in the very definition of the word. _Nothing_ could have readied her for what she found in Malivore—or rather, what she didn’t find; not her experiences with loss, not of trauma, though she’d had enough of that, too. Not even the hours she spent in the Necromancer’s head, which, for all its tortures, was a shadow of the real thing.

God, she’d thought it might be _peaceful_.

But this was no peace. No, this was nothing beyond nothing. A silence so loud it might have been screaming and a darkness that had never known light. She had no idea whether it had been a second or a century since she jumped into the pit, and the knowledge that either way, she was soundly forgotten by everyone she had ever loved was no consolation. 

Hope understood the inevitability of her future, that the only thing awaiting her in either world was an eternity of being alone.

Until suddenly, she wasn’t.

…

The whirlpool opened up where there had been only darkness before; it ripped through the endless vacuum of Malivore, too bright and too loud and endlessly welcome because it was _something_ —it didn’t have to be something good.

The same could be said of Clarke.

She’d been caught in worse arms in her time, and she wasn’t about to begrudge a savior, no matter the shape it took.

It wasn’t that he saved her from the whirlpool; her struggle against it had mostly been a function of the survival instinct that kept her alive for so many years, not any real objection to letting herself be carried away. After all, what hell could be worse than this?

No, he saved her from something far worse than the pool. He saved her from the numbness. The unbearable emptiness she had felt wandering in the night. The sight of him ignited a fire in her belly, hurting sweetly as it tore through her and transported her, body and mind, to those last few seconds in the world above; all the love and rage and grief she felt as she leapt from that balustrade. His grin alone, sharp as it was, sent a feeling rushing through her fingertips like the darker kind of magic.

It made her want to fight.

And Clarke, for all that could be said about him, was particularly good for that.

…

Clarke hadn’t felt much kindness in his life. It was one long in years but short in all that made years worth living. He was created for a purpose, one purpose, and it was a purpose he could never fulfill. Clarke couldn’t provide the heirs his father desired, so he was cast away. Forgotten by the only person in the world he could claim as _his_ , if such a thing could be said.

Another man—a lesser man, in Clarke’s opinion—might have accepted that the will of destiny would always outpower his own. But Clarke refused. Refused to stop trying, to surrender his chance to prove himself, destiny be damned. Not just to his father, though that was the excuse he gave most, but to himself. To quiet the persistent voices in his head, to declare _in finem_ that there was something in him worth saving. That he was more than the failed mud man his father made him to be.

No, it had not been an easy life. And, it had shaped him, as life shapes all of us, in a way that lent pain more natural than touch and too few moments of kindness, true kindness, to let him believe that such a thing might actually exist. That there could be warmth without ulterior motive, that a friend was different from an ally. 

Even if he let himself entertain the idea, Hope Mikaelson was the last place he’d expect to find it.

...

Mud men were hard to kill. They could be hurt, they could feel pain. They could even bleed. But death was such an abstract for such a creature that no one, much less Clarke himself, thought much of safeguarding his life at all.

But Hope—mad, brilliant, _furious_ Hope—seemed prepared to be the first and only exception in his long and bloodied life.

It wasn’t just the comfort spell.

It was that she protected him without a thought, without hesitation.

When the monsters came, skeletal and grotesque, he watched her cast the invisibility spell on herself and felt the familiar bitterness rise up like bile. This is how his life, pitiful as it was, would finally end. Alone, in the dark, cast away one final time.

But the monsters didn’t come. They looked past him like so much darkness, and Clarke didn’t know what that meant.

Why would she save him?

He knew she had no reason to, though he might work to convince her otherwise. To take this moment of either kindness or weakness and leverage it to buy himself one another minute. Another chance. To get out, if he could—to buy himself a kinder death, if he couldn’t. Maybe even at her hand.

She’d make it quick, he thought.

Partners…that was the word he’d used in the moment, more of a joke to hide the emotions he felt than anything else. Partners was a relationship he’d seen in humans, especially at Triad. It was one he could mimic, one based on shared power, mutual gain.

He wouldn’t tell her the truth—that there was no mutual gain to be had, no reason to save him. That he wasn’t _worth_ saving. That he, in fact, might have ruined her only chance to be free of Malivore.

But that bit of kindness she’d shown him, during the attack and in the moments before, was more kindness than he’d been shown in a millennia. He’d follow her through the darkness blindly, tell a thousand lies, if only he could find out _why._ If only it might, somehow, happen again.

It was a shame, then, that she had denied him the option to lie. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this shortly after watching 2x01 because I couldn't stop thinking about their stories, but never found time to continue writing it--sharing this here to jumpstart myself because there is so much between them (particularly after the Christmas phone call my GOD). Will likely keep to major canon events for the first part, more-or-less. More will come, I promise!


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